Autumn Leaves
by La Maddalena
Summary: Sometimes, she forgets who she's chosen to become, and he forgets who he aspires to be - and, sometimes, it's all right to forget that. / Zilong/OC fic, written in a series of drabbles and vignettes. Rating is precautionary.
1. Innocence

Author's Note: This first went up on the DW Fanfiction Archive under the name of Nynaeve. I thought I'd see how it fared here. XP I don't claim historical accuracy, and I humbly beg the forgiveness of purists. Not usually one for OC's, but the idea wouldn't go away and the story had to be told. So here's my piece. I hope you enjoy.

I lay no claim to Dynasty Warriors, the characters therein, or the song by which this fic was inspired - "The Long Way Home" by Norah Jones. Cheers!

**1: Innocence **

There he is again, with his friends across the road, running races, playing ball and fighting mock-battles as young boys are wont to do. She doesn't know his name, and has always been too timid to ask, but she calls him the Little Dragon. Why? Well, that's what he is. It's the way he moves, she thinks, graceful and strong and precise all at once. It's the proud set of his shoulders, and the fire in his eyes. You'd never think he was only a boy of ten from Chang Shan, set to live an ordinary life, marry an ordinary woman and do ordinary work.

Then again, he isn't. Not really. Many people have said that he's destined for great things, and many more agree. His parents must be very proud.

He turns his head, and their eyes meet for a brief period. Or, at least, she imagines they do. Her fragile, eight-year-old heart skips a beat. Or, at least, she imagines it does. She immediately chides herself for being silly and turns back to the book in her lap, content to glance at them every once in a while from her safe place under the peach tree.

Until the wicker-woven ball bounces off the top of her head. Stupid boys.

"Sorry!"

But who's come to retrieve the offending ball? None other than her Little Dragon himself.

She shakes her head, her long dark hair falling like a curtain over her face, and hands the ball over. He takes it up, nodding his thanks, yet does not leave as she expected him to. His head is inclined in quiet thought as he stands before her, as if he's never seen anything quite like her before.

"My name is Zhao Yun," he offers finally. "What's yours?

The dark curtain stirs, and beneath it vibrant green eyes blink once, twice, trying to process this query. The small voice that replies is little more than a whisper, the rustling of leaves and blossoms in the autumn wind.

"Li Xiang."

"It's nice to meet you, Li Xiang." Her Little Dragon - Zhao Yun - smiles. "I've seen you once or twice. Are you here every day?"

"Almost every day."

"What do you do?"

"I read."

"You read?" His tone is perplexed. It's not a common thing for women to know how to read, let alone little girls. "How'd you learn?"

"My father taught me."

"Is he a scholar?"

"He was. He's gone now."

He frowns. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

He quickly breaks the awkward pause with another question. "Not many girls around here like to read. You like books?"

"Very much." Her hair slips forward again, and she lifts her book, frowning into its pages. He's a strange one, this Zhao Yun. Most boys his age wouldn't go out of their way to talk to a little thing like her. Apparently, he's not most boys his age. "They're my only friends now."

"That's grand," he laughs. "You know, my father loves books. He has hordes of them, wonderful books from all over China. You should come and have a look at them sometime." The laughter dies, and his countenance sobers, though his eyes are still alight with hidden mirth. "And maybe they - and I - could be your friends too. Would you like that?"

The green eyes in the pale face behind the dark curtain blink once, twice. Then the thin lips twitch themselves into a smile. It's a restrained sort of smile, as if she's just learned how, but it suffices.

"If it's okay... Zhao Yun, I think I _would _like that."


	2. Imaginary

**2: Imaginary**

Mother was what the oldest, most superstitious townfolk called a half-breed - a pale, green-eyed willow of a girl born to the governor of Chang Shan and his foreign consort. Father was a scholar, calm and grave and full of dignity. How they found each other, or why, remained a mystery. The romantics called it fate. The others simply laughed and shook their heads, and that was that.

Upon hindsight, she has to admit that between the two of them she had very little time or opportunity to make friends. Father was always gentle, but firm, keeping her at the study table or in the library for long hours on end. However, the wondrous tales he told her afterward more than made up for it, and she gave no thought to play as other children did.

And Mother? A quavering bundle of nerves was Mother, forever afraid that her only child would meet with some horrible accident on the road, or another ill fate of that sort. And then where would poor Mother be, Xiang? Where would she be?

Imaginary friends, though, she had in abundance, laughing creatures that flitted through the pages of her book or the landscapes of her mind. It wasn't as if she minded. Not too much, anyway. Imaginary friends never left or hurt, or did anything that you didn't expect them to do. You were safe that way.

Consequently, she sometimes forgets he's real. But only sometimes. Other times, like now, he's all too real, the figure of him sketched out in sharp lines against the sky.

He's sitting beside her now, under the peach tree she agreed to share with him two autumns past, with his long limbs stretched out across the grass. His spear rests beside him, an old bronze one from his father. It makes her a little nervous, that old bronze spear. Just a little.

He's been practicing with it for quite some time, and it shows. He's tanned from the sun, and his hands are calloused, his hair too long, but he doesn't seem to care. He turns his head now, to smile at her. The old bronze spear doesn't make her so nervous anymore.

"There's a leaf in your hair." He pulls it out, examining the veins of red and gold. "Autumn's near."

"Mm."

"What are you thinking about?"

He doesn't expect her to answer. She's never been a talker, never bothered to use one word when none would do. She still isn't. Her imaginary friends never minded, and truthfully he doesn't either. Still, it would be nice if...

"Old friends."

She answered.

"Old friends?"

"The ones out of the books, from when I was little."

"Oh, I see."

"They never asked me what I was thinking." She laughs then, and it's a silver sound. He finds himself wishing he could hear her laugh more often. "Sometimes, I forget _you're _real, Zilong. Then you go and do something you real people do."

"Like pull a leaf out of your hair."

"Mm-hmm."

"Do you so prefer imaginary people to real ones, then?" he inquires, not at all sure if he wants to know.

She shrugs. "It's not that. Just that I have no way of knowing if you'll be here again, next autumn."

He has nothing to say to this.


	3. Princes

**3: Princes**

His friends, the boys he played at ball and war games with when he was younger, tease him about her. About how she lets him, so to speak, play in-and-out with her over on the hillside, like any other village girl would. They wonder, often and out loud, why in Heaven's name he hasn't grown bored of her yet. He simply shrugs and waves them away, reminding them to no avail that it's nothing like that. And they laugh, as if they haven't heard him, about what an odd match they make.

He wonders if that's what they look like - an odd match, even as friends. She's certainly odd herself, with her preference for silence and solitude even at the usually bright and brazen age of fourteen. But he likes that about her. She's not the type to be taken advantage of or pursued, as his friends insinuate, and certainly nothing like the village girls who flutter their eyelashes and giggle behind their hands when he passes by, and dream of a handsome warrior - perhaps even a prince? - on a white horse who'll come to whisk them away and make them Empress of the world. He tells her as much, on one of their afternoon trysts under the peach tree.

She smiles, one of her rare smiles, and leans a pale cheek against her hand. "They're troublesome creatures, princes."

"Oh?"

"Mm-hmm. Even in fairy tales."

"How so?"

"Ponder upon it," she says matter-of-factly. "Who wants to be whisked away from home by a stranger, even if he makes her the Empress of the world or what-have-you? Yes, he'll give you everything you desire and treat you like you're made of spun glass, but what then? What if all the storybook romance is gone? With a home, you're secure. Ordinary, but secure, among people you know, like you should be." She sighs. "Princesses are silly like that."

"Did it ever occur to you, Xiang, that maybe they didn't want to be secure?" he inquires gently. "That maybe they wanted to be alive, perhaps?"

She shrugs, withdrawing into silence again as she will after expressing an opinion.

"The land is changing," he continues. "War is spreading. My father left to fight the other day, and so will I, when I'm strong enough." He leans against the trunk of the tree, hands behind his head. "I want to make a name for myself. You know, give my own little share in bringing back the peace that everyone misses so much. But that means I'll have to leave home, Xiang, and I won't be so secure anymore."

Silence.

"I won't have any peach tree to sit under when I'm not out fighting, or someone to talk about strange things with like I do with you. I'll have comrades, I should think, but I don't know about friends."

"You're very brave, Zilong," she says at last, and smiles again. He thinks he can hear sorrow behind it, but he isn't sure.


	4. Sometimes

**4: Sometimes**

Sometimes she withdraws, retreating into that part of herself that is hers and hers alone. Half-spoken words die on her lips, and she folds herself up with her arms around her knees.

She's sixteen, but on days like this she can act six or sixty. In her protective cocoon of robes and hair, her eyes blink at the brighter green of the grass, studying it as if each blade holds its own story. Even he cannot reach her, but he doesn't mind too much. He understands the need to have something that belongs only to yourself, and he respects that.

Sometimes, in these silent moments, he'll reach over and take her hand. Is it to assure her that he's real? To assure himself that she's real? He's not sure, but he does it anyway. To a passing eye, it's a forward gesture. He knows that. However, he intends nothing forward by it, and she knows better than to take it that way. Perhaps that is all that matters.

Sometimes, when she isn't _too_ far gone, he feels the slight pressure of her fingers in return. But only sometimes. Mostly, her hand simply hangs cool and limp in his, and he can't help but notice how much they've changed. It's been many years since their first meeting; they have both grown from their former selves. Yet, ironically, it feels like they haven't grown at all. It's almost like they're shrinking. Like she _is_ still six and he's only eight.

He often stops to wonder about what goes on in her head when this happens, only to come over and over again to the realization that he doesn't know a lot about her at all. She, on the other hand, seems to know everything about him; it just doesn't seem fair, does it?

Maybe she'll tell him, one day. Definitely not today, and probably not tomorrow. That's all right. One day.

He should consider himself lucky. She doesn't expect anything from him. Her eyes have never soundlessly asked for empty promises, to help her become certain of things he's not certain of himself. Her hand has never deliberately reached for his, desperate to find a sturdy anchor. He doesn't have to be her prince on a white horse, one of those "troublesome creatures" who'll be there for you forever, because they both know that forever is a long, long time. He doesn't have to worry about her in the least. All he has to do is understand that she's chosen to be the one outside looking in, or inside looking out, and she'll never forget that...

"Zhao Yun."

...Except on days like this one. She forgets the person she's chosen to become, and he forgets who he aspires to be.

"What is it?"

"I know you're here. I'm fine. Thanks."

"That's good to know."

And, sometimes, it's all right to forget that.


	5. Leavetaking

**5: Leavetaking**

The call of the battlefield ignites a fire in your blood. It speaks of a life of glory and excitement. The chaos encountered is part of the thrill; the renown you achieve is its greatest reward.

The most reckless charge forward blindly upon hearing it without a backward glance. They rarely ever come home.

The more clear-sighted heed it out of a sense of duty. They are the ones who ride with their eyes forward and their heads held high. This makes them strong. But they, too, rarely ever come home.

There are also those who have heard the call and chosen to close their eyes to it. These are few, for War and Chaos are coy, demanding mistresses. When they call for you, their voices, syrupy-sweet with promise, are not easily denied. Doing so takes strength, but that is a different kind of strength.

The choice has never been thrust into the light for him until now, and seeing it so clear-cut in his mind's eye suddenly makes him feel like a child again, struggling into the too-large costume of a man. The prospect of pushing forward, away from everything familiar and dear, can daunt the bravest heart. But he's heard the call, and isn't sure now if he's strong enough to stay behind.

He doesn't express these doubts aloud, although he knows they'll continue to eat at the inside of him if he leaves them unsaid. Over the years, he has learned to give rather than take, support rather than be supported. It's grown on him, like a second skin. Besides, he has always been stubborn and tenacious by nature, and very, very proud…

"Zhao Yun."

A voice nearby speaks his name. He starts, only to find her there, and smiles sheepishly at his own absentmindedness.

"I'm sorry. My mind must be somewhere else today."

"Are you all right?"

"I will be."

He wants to sound confident, more resolute - more like himself. The voice that leaves his lips is little more than a strained whisper. Her brow knits in a frown, but she chooses to stay silent. It would be better to let him speak of his own accord.

There are too many things he means to say. _"What will you do when I'm gone? What will I do when I'm gone? Should I go, or should I stay behind? Or am I not strong enough to do either? Why has it gotten so that I'll end up torn in two?" _After a few moments' pause, he tries again. What comes out is something entirely different.

"Will you see me off when I leave?"

"You _are _leaving, then."

He nods.

"When?"

"Tomorrow morning." It's a decision made on the spur of the moment. Perhaps that's a good thing. He finds he can't afford to take too much time to ponder and agonize, lest he grow unsure again, or change his mind.

"I'll be sorry to see you go."

"And I'll be sorry to leave."

"But you will."

Another nod. His voice is failing again, damn it.

"I always knew you would. It's just as you said before."

He was younger then, and foolish. He is still young and foolish enough to make the proposal he offers next.

"I could return, you know, at the turn of the fall. It would take some time, but I could."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," she reproves him mildly, though she appeared to consider this suggestion for a few moments. Her hand, as if of its own accord, lays itself against his arm. "When you go forth tomorrow, your duty will be to the land. I may not see you again, but perhaps I'll hear of you riding into the capital city one of these days, with banners before you and people running in the streets, wishing long life upon the Little Dragon." There's a light in her eyes that he's never seen; her voice is fervent as it has been only few times before. "And I will have the satisfaction of knowing that I called you by that name first."

She falls silent. He can think of nothing more to say as they watch the sky put away the sunset and don the more subdued cloak of evening, beaded with stars. After a time, they rise, brushing off leaves, and she bids him goodbye with her eyes. He can feel her fingers close on his wrist, lightly, as if to say _'It's all right.' _He tries to smile, to return the gesture, but his heart is racing in his chest like the wings of a frightened bird. It won't let him.


	6. Recollection

**6: Recollection**

There is too much going on for much more than an hour of sleep. Indeed, there is too much going on for even an extra breath, or so he feels. The heat of the night and the fevered dreams that visit when sleep does are by no means pleasant bedfellows.

Perhaps that's why he sits almost painfully awake in his tent, with only feeble candlelight to see by. The stick of charcoal in his hand fits its shape almost as well as his spear does, and it glides across the surface of the parchment before him with as much, if not more, precision.

"Zilong," comes a voice outside his tent. "What are you still doing awake?" The flap is raised, and a comrade's face comes into his view. An eyebrow lifts at the sight of the brush in his hand. "Are you writing?"

"Writing, Mengqi? No." He smiles, knowing and accepting that he has never had a flair for the word, that he prefers to draw his thoughts. Drawing makes them his own in a way the written word never could. "Just… thinking."

"Is that so?" Mengqi steps into the tent with the familiarity of a trusted friend, closing the flap behind him and moving to sit. "I should like to see when you've finished."

"They're only little things, just for myself, really." He shakes his head and hands the parchment over. "But have a look, if you will."

The scenes on the paper are quickly sketched everyday scenes, but drawn just so that the observer sees them in a different, unexplainable light. Mengqi can only guess at what its artist, normally so candid and honest, was thinking as he drew.

On one side, boys play at ball in an unfamiliar town, with the curved roofs of houses to serve as their background and a broad avenue before them. It brings a small smile unbidden to his face as he remembers doing such things when he was no older than they, free of the burden he shoulders now. However, it's the drawing on the other half of the page that catches his attention and refuses to let go.

Leaves fall in the foreground, while further back a gnarled, twisted tree reaches high with branching arms. Beneath it stands the slender figure of what he assumes is a woman, her face turned away, veiled by a long cloak of hair…

"Nostalgia," Mengqi whispers, his mouth quirking upward into the faintest of smirks. "Who is she?"

"She…?"

"This lady here." His thumb brushes over the faint outline of the woman in the picture. "Who is she?"

A shrug. "A friend from my youth."

"A friend?" Mengqi isn't one to tease, but this opportunity is golden, too much to pass up. "Or a lover?"

"Hardly a lover." Zilong chuckles, nudging his friend's shoulder with an elbow. "Perhaps more like a sister."

"Do you see her often?"

"It's been years. We weren't much more than children when we met last."

"You should go see her, then, when the opportunity arises." The smirk softens. "It never hurts to return to one's roots once in a while."

He shakes his head, remembering an old, rash promise made by another him in another life. "She wouldn't remember me."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

Mengqi laughs at this. "You'd be surprised. But no matter." He rises. "It's late. I'll take my leave of you now, else I fall off my horse in the morning from lack of sleep. Good night, Zhao Yun."

"Good night."

He is still awake long after Mengqi leaves, the drawing in his hand, even as his eyes grow heavy and the sky darkens as it will before the dawn. He sighs, raising the piece of parchment to the candle flame.

"Return to my roots? Maybe, one of these days. But not right now. I'm sorry."

The paper's edges catch fire. It flares briefly for one vivid second, like a dying star, and crumbles into flecks of ash, stark white against the darkness. As he has done with so many others before it, he sweeps the pile to the ground. Only then does he retire to the sticky heat and the dreams that he earlier tried so hard to avoid. They are better known to him than his own heart.


	7. Dilemma

**7: Dilemma**

After all the long years of it, silence is no longer the comfort that it should be. Shadows dance across the walls of her old sanctuary as they loom higher and press in, crushing her. With even that turned upon her, she isn't sure where else she can go.

Her mother died last summer, but that day and the days that followed it are little more than sandy memories, really. She barely shed a tear. It had been a good life. Even good lives must end, however, and she knew. She knows.

Still, she wonders, distantly and with a faint pang of guilt, whether it is a disservice to her mother's memory that she has not grieved as much as others tell her she should. She wonders whether it is a disservice to herself that she does not feel things as others tell her she should.

Oh well.

"Mother, I'm sorry I did not weep at your funeral," she says to the cool, clean earth of the grave as she sweeps the fallen leaves from it one afternoon. Her voice grazes her throat, gently, like an old tool rusty from disuse. "I couldn't. The healer-woman rebuked me for that, but I couldn't. I don't know why. You understand, don't you?"

The earth and the stone, of course, say nothing. But she can imagine they do. Perhaps that is enough.

"She asked me why I wasn't weeping, and I told her that you lived a good life, and it ended. That's just the way things are." The crackling sweep of broom and leaves soothes her. "And she said something odd then. It went something like, 'Don't presume to know of life. You haven't loved. You haven't hated. You haven't wanted. You've made no choices that you can be proud of, and none you can regret. You haven't changed if you could stop it, child, and that will be your doom and early death. When you're an old woman just like me, you'll look back on every single year and you'll see a complete waste. Just you wait.'"

She pauses for breath, as if saying so many words at once is an effort she's experienced only few times before. "Have I wasted my years, mother? It's becoming difficult to tell, now. I look at the empty hallways and the closed doors and I think that maybe it _is _time for something different."

A sigh.

"But where… where would I go? What would I do? At least, here…"

Another sigh.

"I am alone now. Completely, utterly alone."

What monotony.

"Would you be disappointed in me? Would Father?" Her eyes catch sight of an object leaning against the wall of her house, and she leaves her broom to examine it. For the first time in forever, she feels her heart twist a little.

The shaft is smooth with age, the bronze head tarnished and dull. It's an old spear, the last reminder of an old friend that brings a tear unbidden to her eye. It rolls, warm and sweet and unfamiliar, down her cheek. Her hand moves of its own accord to wipe it away. It's only one tear, yes, but one is enough.

"Would _you…?"_

Perhaps he has returned to the earth as well, and he would not answer her. Perhaps not. Either way, she will not see him again.

"I miss you, you know. I wish you wouldn't trouble me like that."


	8. Parallels

**8: Parallels**

He's a lean man now, with enough hard-earned faith in himself to walk with pride. He's lost most of the gangling awkwardness of his youth beneath layers of steel, in the fires of war.

_So much has changed..._

But as his white stallion, now gray with dust, trots steadily up the long road lit only by the light of the gibbous moon, he senses that he is also weary, aching in places he doesn't want to remember or name. He doesn't let on, of course, if only for the sake of his lord and his people, but he can't suppress the temptation to laugh at the irony. A youth who has yet to see even his thirtieth spring, but already so tired...

Perhaps that's why he has chosen to follow the road he walks now: for a renewal of vigor at the altar of an old sanctuary.

_I'm coming home._

He sighs.

And then he smiles.

* * *

She, in turn, has lost most of her softness. She hides behind her books and shadows less with every passing day.

Perhaps that's why she finds herself pausing halfway through a nightly walk to turn her face into the wind that smells slightly of rain, and listen to what she thinks may be the distant drum of a horse's hooves against the earth.

She very nearly doesn't recognize the man that comes up the shallow crest of the hill, armored but modestly, his mount's flanks dusted with grit from the road. But there's something in his eyes, in the way he holds his head that in its certainty is ever so slightly unsure, that she recognizes.

_He's home._


	9. Tinder

**9: Tinder**

"You're late."

"Late? Whatever do you mean?"

"You said you'd come at the turn of the _fall, _you dolt. It's wintertime."

"Well, then, I'm sorry for that." He accepts the cup of warmed wine from her with a charming smile. "I see winter up here is as dismal as ever."

"This place changes little in spite of everything that happens elsewhere. Even the gloom refuses to leave us." She shrugs her shoulders with a little regret, as if to apologize for the wine and the smoldering fire and the quiet that probably seems to him so empty, even terrible. "I'm only sorry that I have little for myself this time around, and even less to offer you."

"You forget that Chang Shan is _my _home, too."

"It's because you're different."

It's all she knows how to say. There are many, many things she has to learn to take in. She isn't used to the fact that she has to tilt her head back, now, to be able to look at him. She isn't used to the fact that her voice does not belong to her when she speaks, but to another entity that bids her to regard him as a stranger, as a guest.

Chill green eyes meet gentle brown and turn themselves away. For a moment she thinks she saw a flicker of the boy in the man, a frail trace of starlight that vanished with a blink.

_How bright he is. How alive. How is it that his eyes have not yet lost him his soul? And can I not even look at him anymore, for fear of losing mine?_

"Am I really?" His words strain under the light veneer. It seems that he labors to even form her name. "Am I really, Xiang?"

He's never tried to press her before; he knows he shouldn't. The words run out of their own accord, contorting themselves to the will of a man that is only dimly himself, a man who lets instinct ensnare judgment.

Thick clouds skate across the sky outside, gray and heavy with snow that still refuses to fall. She rises to her feet, moving to the window, quietly pleading with someone she cannot see but is sure she must know. Maybe they, whoever _they _happen to be, can give her words that won't feed the fire. Maybe they know that suddenly, she finds herself able only to bend for fear of breaking.

_Command me._

"I don't know. Perhaps it's not you who is different, Zilong," she says at last, "but I."


	10. Snowfall

**10: Snowfall**

Upon reflection, he finds he wishes he had spent the few days of his visit to his boyhood home doing something other than reminisce. There is something in the high walls, in the bare stone of the cobbled streets that once rang with laughter that seems to him crumbling and derelict, in need of the renewal that he sought when he turned his stallion's feet this way. It almost saddens him, he must confess, that he finds he can do so little for the place that has given him so much. After all he has endured, is there still nothing he can stop long enough to care for? Nothing he can forget the rest of the world to protect?

He knows he shouldn't do this, shouldn't cling to the permanence of his past in the face of an uncertain future, seeking an escape that he always finds too little of, too late. He has soaked in his fill of the battlefield, dyed dark crimson with the blood of friend and foe alike, the voices of the dying clashing in dissonant chorus with those of the ones who remain all too alive.

_Where are your brave words, Little Dragon? Your pretty, selfless acts of valor? Is the burden weighing you down so soon, Zhao Yun? Zhao Yun?_

"...Zhao Yun?" In the labyrinth of his weakness, her voice is a lifeline. His mind wraps around it and refuses to let go, though outwardly he gives no signal. "Haven't you slept?"

His lips form a smile of their own accord, a wan ghost of the gleeful abandon he can still remember. Still, it does a little to abate his worry; he can only hope it does the same to the concern sketched across her face.

"I had an hour or two. It's enough." He moves slightly, to make room for her on the window seat. "Would you believe that sometimes one can be too tired to sleep?"

"I know that feeling well," is all she offers, leaning over to stoke the fire in response to the first frost that's already begun to blanket the world outside. The glow throws a strange light on her face, and beneath the shadows of her hair he has to note that her features have become anything but nondescript, even as he tells himself this isn't the time for such things. He can sense the sudden rift the years have drawn between them; it's perturbing to think that there are places that one can go now where the other will not be able to follow.

"You were right, you know." His smile widens a hair's breadth. "You _are _different."

She returns her attention to him with a politely inclined head, inviting him to continue. Her eyes are calm, betraying nothing, with familiar composure he has always admired alongside a touch of envy.

"What I mean to say is… what happened?"

Thin shoulders shrug almost imperceptibly. Despite the stillness, her gaze is always wandering, never resting on a single thing for more than a heartbeat.

"I don't think it's what has happened, Yun," she tells him, slowly, "but what has not. I haven't had to endure what you have."

"Be glad of that." The words are out of his mouth before he can think about them, clipped, curt as he never knew himself to be. The strange smile lights her face again; he can't discern whether she means it to be an apology or a gentle admonition.

"You chose it."

"…Yes, I did, didn't I?" He shakes his head, tasting the sound of his own words, acquainting himself with them. "I chose it."

Her hand settles on his arm. He likes to think that one gesture could bridge the rift, a little. "Do you regret?"

"I? Regret?"

After a few moments' pause, he amends, "No. No, forbid that I should ever think that." He takes her hands, holds them there in between his own for a long while, as he did in the days when it was she who retreated so deep into herself that he feared he would not be able to find her again. A part of him is glad that she has not changed so much that she would turn him away.

"But Xiang." He hangs his head. His voice has gone soft and confessional, almost penitent. "Li Xiang, forgive me. Please forgive me. I'm so tired."

A light laugh escapes her, and his heart both lifts and sinks to hear the same silver sound.

Outside the window, the first frost comes down quiet and cold, a few flakes settling starkly on the dark wood of what was once known as _their _peach tree. The bare, tangled branches reach up to score the lightening sky, like strings of broken lyres.

"That's hardly a sin," she says at last. "You're such a silly boy, still."


	11. Experience

**Author's Notes: **Well, that's all, folks. XD We've reached the end of the end; I'm almost sad to see it finally go, but oh well. I hope taking the long way home has been as pleasurable a ride for you as it has been for me. Many thanks, especially, to those who helped me out of the many ruts in more ways than one. You know who you are, lovelies.

* * *

**11: Experience**

Once in a while, she dreams.

They come, dancing close, and are gone just as quickly, capricious as the early snow that never seems to be sure about when or where it will fall. They come in dark, light, gray-- in the near-bottomless pit that fills the gaps between them with a choking sort of nothing. But they come when they must.

She finds that's become increasingly often lately, in the muted quiet of the early afternoon. It takes a little more effort to open her eyes these days, a little more force to keep her hands moving at some task or other that after a while only seems tedious and time-consuming. More often than once in a while, she rests her head against the knotted bark of her bare peach tree, and lets her vision cloud and clear by turns. There, uninterrupted between sleep and waking, she dreams.

She sees him more often than not, standing by the balustrade just outside her reverie, with a look on his face mirroring concern. He worries. Not for her, she knows, or for her only in part. His attention has always been fixed on something bigger, on a straight and narrow lane that leaves very little to deviate from or turn aside. It's just part of who he is-- who they are. She keeps to the borders, thriving on the patches of detail that will never be put under the scrutiny of an admiring eye. He sees the big picture, something bigger than their childhood and their corner and their autumn leaves that fade into the color of his eyes when the firelight strikes his face just right. She lets him. He lets her let him.

_That just how it is. It doesn't matter. _

Some part of her thinks it ought to matter more. She ought to mind, it says, but she replies that she'd rather not. She ought to speak, it insists, but she tells it that she knows better.

_Or do you? _

She would. She knows she would, if she had time to dream a little dream a little longer, if that someone, whoever it was, would stop shaking her shoulder, whispering something her ears miss only just. She shakes her head, tired, laggard as she rarely allows herself to be.

_Stop it. _

Yet it persists, as ghosts and shadows will, or children. Or ghosts and shadows of children.

_You've been asleep too long. Wake up. _

"Wake up."

She gives in, lifts the curtains from her eyes enough to look and see him there. He looks back, a little apologetically, but does not sit by the roots with her as he used to do. Her gaze flicks to the gate, where his stallion stands tethered, eager and waiting. She doesn't need words to put two and two together.

"…It's time, then," she says at last, her whisper misting tiny clouds in the air in front of her. "You're ready to go home."

"Away, more like." His returning smile is wry. "Though I wish I could tarry longer."

"Then the years have made you foolish, Little Dragon. I hope you haven't forgotten what I said the last time. You know who you owe your allegiance to, and they're very fortunate indeed." She laughs a little. Her laugh is more water than silver now. "But I wish you long life, among other things. Do tell me…" A cough. "…Do tell me if there's anything more that you need for the road ahead."

"Nothing, but thank you. Except, maybe…" He shifts a little, and the old, stumbling gawkiness returns for a flash. "Xiang, is there anything _I _can do for _you? _Anything you need that I can supply?" A pause. "Anything you want at all?"

A moment of consideration follows, before she answers him as she rises, dusting herself off, bowing low at the waist so the curtain of her hair falls forward. It masks her. It's a comfort, but she finds she doesn't need it quite as much as she thought she once did.

There are many childish comforts that she finds she doesn't need anymore.

"Only that you remember me kindly every so often, Yun." She straightens up, brushing the veil away to be able to look into his face from her own. "And that you never forget this place."

He does not speak. Over the years, he's learned the value of silence, the beauty of not using a word when none would do. He knows, in his way, how to convey his meaning as she did, as she does: with a movement, a gesture, a glance, only a glance…

Her body is thin in his arms, all sharp angles and gentle curves, and chill. The slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathes betrays nothing at all.

"Say something?" he ventures, when it becomes clear that neither will speak and one has to gently push the other into doing so.

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know." He gives a half-joking shrug, runs his fingers once through her hair. "That you'll miss me?"

"…Why?" Her gaze flicks again to the white stallion tethered to the gate, waiting, and she steps away with only a split second's hesitation.

_Not enough to matter,_ she tells herself. _Not enough to leave a lasting mark. _

She turns, partly to hide her smile from him, partly to mourn for something, a little. She isn't sure what, but maybe one of them will stumble upon the answer one day, and tell the other. "You're not going anywhere."

He laughs at this. A real laugh this time, a clear peal without any grating or strain. It continues, gradually softening, as he moves away from her, toward his mount. Neither of them, he's realized, likes the sound of the word "goodbye" very much, so something else must suffice until next time.

"That's true. I'm only taking the long way home."

**Fin**


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